


hold onto me as we go

by schweet_heart



Series: Merlin Fic [134]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Era, First Kiss, Fluff, Hurt Merlin, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining, Oblivious Arthur Pendragon, Oblivious Merlin, Pining, Protective Arthur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 00:11:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15206555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schweet_heart/pseuds/schweet_heart
Summary: A king cannot beweak; a prince cannot depend on anyone but himself, not if he wants to live long enough to rule. But Merlin is neither a prince nor a king, has no one’s opinion to satisfy but his own, and for whatever inexplicable reason he always reaches for Arthur first and holds onto him the tightest, even long after the danger is gone.Written forthisKinks of Camelot prompt.





	hold onto me as we go

**Author's Note:**

  * For [arthur_pendragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arthur_pendragon/gifts).



 

It’s not something Arthur knows how to recognise at first, the way that Merlin reaches for him whenever he gets hurt, clinging to Arthur’s wrist or grasping for his shoulder like Arthur is a lifeline and Merlin is in danger of falling over a cliff. Vulnerability of that sort had been bred out of him long before, out of bones and body and skin until Arthur almost believed in his own invincibility. A king cannot be _weak_ ; a prince cannot depend on anyone but himself, not if he wants to live long enough to rule. But Merlin is neither a prince nor a king, has no one’s opinion to satisfy but his own, and for whatever inexplicable reason he always reaches for Arthur first and holds onto him the tightest, even long after the danger is gone.  
  
“You’re like a bloody octopus,” Arthur grumbles the first time this happens, when Merlin is still woozy from a blow to the head and clutching at Arthur’s arm for support. “I could swear that you have eight arms. No, not that way,” he adds, and he reels Merlin in as he takes off in exactly the wrong direction, reasoning that at least if he keeps the idiot close he won’t go getting knocked out again. “You’re a danger to yourself.”  
  
“I’m fine,” Merlin says, squirming out of Arthur’s grasp and sidling away, but Arthur notices that his fingers stay hooked in Arthur’s tunic as he does so, pinkie to ring finger, like a child afraid of getting lost in the dark. “And no, I don’t think the blow did too much damage, _thank you_ for asking.”  
  
Arthur already knows it didn’t, because a Merlin who can scowl and gripe and get in Arthur’s way is not a Merlin he needs to concern himself with, but he spares a moment to look him over just in case. There’s a nasty cut above his right eye and the beginnings of a bruise on his temple, but beneath the dirt and the blood he is tense and alert, head up as he keeps his eyes peeled for the enemy. It’s not fear, then, that makes him hold on so tightly, even though Arthur hadn’t really thought it would be. It’s not danger, either.  
  
Later, when the knights have regrouped and the bandits are gone and they’re all sitting together around the fire, Merlin says quietly, “You know, my mother used to do that,” and Arthur realises he’s been running his hand through Merlin’s hair, unnoticed, and Merlin is leaning against his shoulder with his eyes closed, allowing him to touch.  
  
“Yes, well,” Arthur says, letting his hand fall and settle against the nape of Merlin’s neck. There is only a small sliver of naked skin between Merlin’s hair and his neckerchief, but Arthur can feel it against his palm like the hilt of a blade, tempting and oh-so-dangerous. “I’m not your mother.”  
  
“I noticed.” A smile flickers across Merlin’s face, but he doesn’t say anything else, and Arthur lacks the vocabulary to explain why it should be so necessary, after everything, to make sure they can still touch one another after a day like this. He tightens his grip to make Merlin squirm, and covers his smirk in a yawn when he gets an elbow to the ribs. Out here, with his father’s knights around them, their usual banter and horseplay goes largely unnoticed, and it covers up the sudden fear that this is more than just a game. If they had been alone, Arthur is certain, he would not have stopped at something so innocent. Perhaps he would not have stopped at all.

 

* * *

 

It becomes more obvious than ever after that, once Arthur understands what he should be looking for. There’s Merlin stubbing his own toe in the armoury, holding onto Arthur’s shirt as he hops on one foot; Merlin with a broken arm curled in close to his chest, fighting with his bad shoulder turned flush against Arthur’s back; there is even, once, the soft snuffle of Merlin’s breath against Arthur’s neck in the small hours, the only sign he’s even still alive after a brush with a Serket goes horribly wrong. Arthur has seen small children turn to their mothers for comfort before, and he knows without asking that Merlin had been one of them, once, secure in Hunith’s sympathy as Arthur had never been in his father’s stern regard, and sometimes he thinks maybe that’s all it is; maybe it’s an old habit Merlin’s never quite managed to train himself out of. But Merlin keeps turning to _him_ first, last, always, and Arthur has never comforted anyone, has never had a mother or sisters to teach him how to say the things one is meant to say to a dying man. So it’s not that, either.  
  
“You don’t even need my help to stand up,” Arthur grouses at one point, his shoulder wedged under Merlin’s good arm as he half carries the other man to safety. “You got hit in the shoulder, not the leg. You can walk on your own.”  
  
“Mhmm,” is Merlin’s only answer, which is concerning, as is the way his head lolls back against the tree trunk when Arthur sets him down, his face drawn taut and white to the lips. As always, he has one hand wrapped around Arthur’s wrist, and his eyes, though barely open, are tracking Arthur’s face rather than the arrow in his chest. “They’re gone?”  
  
“For now.” He risks taking a moment to smooth Merlin’s fringe back from his forehead, noting the sweat beading the pale skin and the shallow breaths. “Are you okay?”  
  
“For now.” A slight smile. “Hurts, though.”  
  
“I’m not surprised.”  
  
Ideally, this would be the moment for Gaius to appear, spouting ancient wisdom and carrying a potion that would somehow (improbably) save Merlin’s life. Gaius is back in Camelot, though, and Arthur knows better than to try to remove an arrowhead on his own.  
  
“We’ll head back to the citadel at first light,” he decides, since Merlin is in no shape to move and the dark is deepening, crawling in over the horizon faster than they can escape it. “I don’t want to make things worse because I can’t see what I’m doing. Do you think you can hang on until morning?”  
  
“Do I have a choice?” Merlin asks, sounding strained. There are lines in his face, deep and shadowed, and his cheeks in the low light have a waxy appearance that Arthur doesn’t like. “I’m not exactly eager to hang onto this thing, you know.”  
  
Instead of answering, Arthur slides in behind him, ignoring for a moment the heart-clenching whimper to wrap both arms around his waist and settle Merlin against him. With Arthur holding onto him like this, Merlin is in no danger of aggravating his wound by rolling in the night, with the added bonus that he may be able to get some sleep, uncomfortable though it might be. It’s not much—it’s damnably little, all things considered—but Merlin sighs and leans into him anyway, curving away from his injured shoulder to rest his cheek against Arthur’s chest.  
  
“I knew you were good for something,” he mutters, and has the audacity to poke an elbow into Arthur’s stomach as he moves, trying to get comfortable. “It’s all that padding around the middle. If your career as a prince doesn’t work out, sire, you’d make the perfect sleeping cushion.”  
  
“And you’d make an excellent porcupine,” Arthur retorts after a startled silence, but too late—Merlin has already fallen asleep.

 

* * *

 

They don’t talk about it, afterwards, not even in the oblique kind of way that they talk about everything else, with seriousness leavened by humour and the occasional moment of genuine honesty. Arthur half drags, half bullies Merlin home the following morning and spends the next week half sick with worry at his bedside, the wound having turned septic despite Gaius’ best efforts to prevent it. Merlin pulls through, of course—it would have been treason if he hadn’t, since Arthur had in one of his weaker moments expressly forbidden him to die—but he is pale and too-thin for a long time afterwards, and every time Arthur thinks about bringing it up there is a sickening swoop of emotion in his stomach, which he tells himself has nothing to do with fear.  
  
He doesn’t want to draw Merlin’s attention to it, is all. It’s not that he thinks Merlin is oblivious, because on some level he has to recognise what he is doing, but until Arthur has sorted out precisely what that is and what to do about it, he doesn’t want to take the risk that Merlin will—stop, withdraw, return to whatever discreet distance a servant is meant to keep around his betters and never explain a thing.  
  
When Arthur himself is injured, Merlin hovers. Granted, he never entirely disappears, but whatever touching he does is limited to the perfunctory, taking Arthur’s temperature and re-dressing his wounds. He moves around the sickroom like a restless ghost, and there are times when Arthur wants to reach out for him in turn, though whether to keep him close or to push him away is an open question.  
  
When Merlin is the one who’s hurt, he clings unashamedly, following Arthur with his eyes as though terrified he will walk away, yet he doesn’t act like a man who is afraid for his own life—it seems only that he would prefer to have Arthur near.  
  
The difference is, quite frankly, puzzling, in the way that so many things about Merlin are puzzling, and though Arthur may understand the different parts of him at different times, he can’t help wondering whether he will ever comprehend the whole man all at once.

 

* * *

 

And then there is the Labyrinth at Gedref; another cup of poison.  
  
There are worse places to die, Arthur supposes, than on a clear stone beach with Merlin beside him, and there are worse things to die for than the people and the land that he loves, but if Arthur had had his druthers then in the grand scheme of things he’d rather have not had to die at all. Merlin's voice is ringing in his ears, frightened and angry, and it's his face that Arthur turns to as his eyes slip closed, aware, for once, of his own hand stretching across the distance between them, of Merlin seated so close but also just out of reach. If he could speak, he would probably say something like _idiot_ , but what he would mean is simpler: _stay with me_.  
  
Because when it comes right down to it, if this is it—if this will be the last thing he ever sees—then he’s glad that it’s Merlin who came with him and no one else, glad that the last face trapped behind his lids will have dark, messy hair and too-big ears, that it is attached to someone he has been growing, almost imperceptibly, to love.  
  
When he wakes a short time later, he can hear the sound of the waves on the shore, taste the sharpness of salt in the air as he inhales—strangely, alive. His head is pillowed tenderly in Merlin’s lap, and there are Merlin’s tears on his face, Merlin’s fingers clenched tightly in the fabric of his shirt.  
  
“You could have _died_ ,” Merlin says, sounding upset.  
  
“Obviously, I didn’t,” Arthur replies, dry, and he’s still smiling at the resulting huff of indignation when he has Merlin’s nose crushed against his cheek and Merlin’s tongue in his mouth, Merlin’s hands burying themselves in the tousled mess of his hair.  
  
“Most people,” Arthur says carefully when they break apart, “would consider it treason to lay hands on a prince.”  
  
That earns him a short laugh. “I’m sure they would.” Merlin looks pointedly at Arthur’s hand, which has somehow found its way back to his cheek without permission. “Though I’m not sure it counts as treason if the prince decides to lay hands on me right back.”  
  
There is no appropriate answer to that, so Arthur allows himself to be helped back to his feet, brushing off Merlin’s jacket in defiance of his crooked grin and hooking their fingers together. He knows from the smile on Merlin's face that he has got it right, and is unable to resist bumping their shoulders together as they turn towards home.

 


End file.
